That Cheating Website- Madison Reed
Recently, I have been hearing and seeing a lot about Madison Reed. No, it’s not the website you visit to cheat on your spouse, but it is still a cheating website...sort of…
Madison Reed is a company that sells hair color. For the last month, I have heard ads for it on the Pandora station I play in my salon, and last week, sponsored ads made their way onto my Facebook newsfeed. This isn't shocking, considering I am a hairstylist and makeup artist. So, I decided one day to click the ad, just to see what all the hype was about. After all, hair color for $25 that you can do right in your very home and “Ditch the Salon and Be Your Own Stylist” - must be amazing right?
When you first go to the Madison Reed website, you are instructed to “Find Your Perfect Shade” by taking a quiz. You answer the questions depending on your goal and voila they give you 4 or 5 options based on your answers. There are 2 questions that bother me. They ask what your current color is and give black, brown, red or blonde as your options. Uh what? After you chose your current color they ask you what “color tones” you like in your hair and give you gold, mahogany, copper, red or violet ash as your options. Uhhhhh…whhhhhat?
Here’s the thing…everyone sees color differently. It’s true. What I think is a warm golden brown…you may see as a copper brown. This is why an in person consultation is so very important. Remember when we first colored our hair at 15 years old and just couldn’t wait for our hair to be the color on the top of the box? Except, that is not reality as that is color put on white hair and then photographed under lights. The “swatches” that they show look just like the ones on the top of the box color boxes.
I saw several women posting pictures of themselves on the Facebook page asking “What color do you think works for me?” The site claims to have professional colorists on hand to answer questions. Well, I have a couple questions. 1. Are they educated in the science of hair color? 2.Do they know the porosity and elasticity of your specific hair? 3. Do they know how you style it and your washing ritual? 4. Do they know the EXACT percentage of gray hair you have compared to the amount of melanin you have remaining? 5. Do they know if you have an allergy to hair color? The answer to most of these questions are a very simple “no” because it would be impossible from a picture. These are just a few of the things I cover in a consultation with a client.
During a consult with me…I sit in a chair across from my client and look them in the eye and ask “First things first - tell me what you DO NOT like about your hair?” The reason this is my first question is because my clients come to me with a picture of a cut and or a color but I need to know the struggles of their hair before I just throw color and shears at it. The answer to that question will remain with me for the duration of the appointment. It will determine what color blonde, brown, red, gold, copper, ash, beige, purple, blue or green I use. It will determine my body position when I am standing behind her to cut, the angle of my fingers when I layer, the length of the haircut and what haircut they can get that works well with the color. I didn’t see those questions or even any answers on Madison Reed’s Facebook page and just couldn’t understand. YOU MUST ASK THESE QUESTIONS and if they can’t give you the answer…RUN.
So, you post your picture on their Facebook page and someone sees it and says “You need Bolanzo Brown!” So you get it, and 35 long minutes later you shower and quickly blow-dry your hair. Well, shit, why are my roots lighter than my ends? Basically, your grown out roots are your natural color, while the ends still have the previous color on it; this makes for light roots and dark ends. I saw too many pictures of hot roots on the Madison Reed Facebook page. Here’s another issue…if you do mess up or the color doesn’t take, they send you another box for FREE!!!! Awesome right??? No, now you have to process your hair again and maybe put two different colors on your hair. If there is a mistake and you need a salon to fix it; I can almost guarantee it is going to be costly. When a color correction comes to me, the starting cost is $100 an hour. This is because coloring your hair at home or from a box makes it unpredictable and there is no way to know how much or what products I will have to use to fix it.
Let’s talk about their “all natural, and no harsh chemicals” claim. You have to be careful with claims like this. It is like when something says it is “Sugar Free” but when you look at the ingredients, there are “sugar alcohols” in place of sugar. They throw around the big scary words like Ammonia, Resorcinol, PPD and Parabens. Ok tough talk…I looked into it and all they did was replace these things with broken down versions or ingredients that are actually worse than the original offenders. I don’t mean to imply that Madison Reed is being deceptive because maybe they don’t know that “ethanolamine” is 1 part ethylene oxide and 1 part ammonia. That was a simple google search, but I digress. It was actually a pretty interesting read. Check it out here:
Here’s the deal folks…I do not think there is an “all natural” alternative to hair color outside of Henna. The basic scientific concept of hair color is to open the cuticle of the hair to allow color molecules to absorb. If someone one can show me how to do this without ammonia I am surely all ears!
Look, I totally understand that getting your hair done is a luxury and can be costly depending on what you have done. The average one of my clients spends with me is around $120 for a color/cut/style. I want to take a moment to explain this number and why services cost what they do. I rent a suite that I operate from and pay close to $200 a week for it. But it is my little suite and I am proud of it. Now…when we talk cost of doing business, that 100% falls to me as the owner. It is the same for retail salon owners. One tube of hair color costs anywhere from $6-$7 a tube. It is pretty uncommon for me to only use one tube of color in a service. Some of my clients have three or even four different colors in their formula. When you break that down, for the color alone, the service has already cost me or the salon between $18-$21. Then you add in the cost of the developer, tools, water, shampoo, towels and a cape and you are looking at around $30-$35. Oh wait…but you haven’t paid yourself yet. I'm sure you get where I am going with this. It's not cheap to run a salon and if the service does not justify the cost, find another salon. My clients pay me to do their hair because they don’t want to. There will always be people who choose or want to color their own hair. I'm not judging them for that! In fact, I have even provided some of my lovely clients with the color I use on their hair to hold them over for a time or two.
The unanswerable question…
Clients ask me for my input on products all the time. For the most part, if I haven’t tried it myself, I have no comment about it. I have not tried this product, and to be fair, it takes a lot for me to try products because I am picky for myself and my clients. The reason I am stating my opinion now is because of the marketing that pulled me into looking at Madison Reed. They put a lot of money into sponsored ads on social media and streaming services. Hairstylists have gotten a bad wrap for a LONG time because it can be expensive and time consuming. My friends and I work our butts off, on our feet, or hunched over a sink, for 8-10 hours a day. It can be brutal work, and when I read things like “Ditch the Salon” and other marketing that denigrates my profession, I start digging and form an opinion.
I went to the Aveda Institute at the age of 30 after the mortgage company I worked for went bankrupt during the financial crisis. I knew I didn’t want to go corporate again so I choose Aveda. I am proud of the education I received there and, trust me, for the cost, they were proud of the education too. So, I don’t appreciate this company making it sound like every one can do this job! Not everyone can, and frankly, not everyone should. To be a hairstylist you need and education - understanding of the color spectrum (which color tones work with which), chemistry (you are working with chemicals), anatomy (the shape of the head and face), math (angles in which to section, foil, weave and cut), safety and sanitation (you are working with chemicals, and very sharp tools that require a license from the state). It would take me an entire article to write about everything I learned about hair care, coloring and styling. My point is - this is my job and I love what I do. This is also how I support my family and pay my bills, and it feels insulting that Madison Reed can’t think of a better way to hawk their product. If your product is good…you shouldn’t have to step on my neck to get ahead.